The Inner 10 AU of HR 8799

Details The Inner 10 AU of HR 8799 The Inner 10 AU of HR 8799

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011ess.....2.2207h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #2, #22.07

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We report the results of Keck L'-band aperture masking interferometry of HR 8799, a system with four confirmed planetary mass companions at projected orbital separations of 14 to 68 AU. We use these observations to place constraints on the presence of planets and brown dwarfs at projected orbital separations inside of 10 AU---separations out of reach to more conventional direct imaging methods. No companions were detected at better than 99% confidence between orbital separations of 0.8 to 10 AU. We place upper limits to planetary mass companions of 80, 60, and 11 Jupiter Masses at projected orbital separations of 0.8, 1, and 3-10 AU respectively. Our constraints on massive companions to HR 8799 will help clarify ongoing studies of the orbital stability of this multi-planet system, and may illuminate future work dedicated to understanding the dust-free hole interior to 6 AU. These are the first mass upper limits to additional companions at such small projected orbital separations. Further, our contrast of 8 magnitudes at the L'-band diffraction limit of the Keck Telescopes is one of the most sensitive achieved using this technique, and these limits are within 2 magnitudes of the 9.5 - 10 magnitude contrast sensitivity expected with the upcoming aperture masking capabilities of the Tunable Filter Imager to be deployed with the James Webb Space Telescope. Our results highlight the importance of achieving moderate contrast at very small inner working angles for the purpose of detecting young Jovian mass planets in nearby star forming regions at 140 pc.

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